Revision as of 09:40, 29 April 2011

Superintendents of Indian Affairs for a specific locality existed from approximately 1803 until 1878, when the last Superintendency was abolished. After 1878, agents of the Bureau of Indian Affairs reported directly to the Commissioner's Office in Washington, DC, at least until the BIA created Area Offices.

A Superintendent of Indian Affairs was an administrator, communicating and overseeing the agents who worked directly with individual tribes. It was the responsibility of the superintendent to see that the agents were following official government policy. Records for Superintendencies exist in the National Archives and copies of many of them are also available in other research facilities.

The dates of the records listed in the following chart may extend beyond the date when the Superintendency was abolished. The Bureau of Indian Affairs occasionally filed correspondence under the name of the Superintendency even after it had ceased to operate. Pre-1824 correspondence was under the jurisdiction of the War Department.

State

Chronological

Records

Record

Group

NARA#

FHLC First Film

Rolls

Missouri Superintendency

1813-1822

Existing records would be filed with the correspondence of the War Department